Secondary menu

Tertiary Menu

Taliban grow in Brooklyn

A blog (from "web blog") is a discussion or informational site consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed newest first. All Corrente posts are front-paged; there is no up-rate or down-rate process. Corrente posts are almost entirely community moderated. We encourage a clash of ideas, and do not encourage a clash of persons.

If you are the author of this post, see the Edit tab ad Help (and Advanced Help) for detailed documentation.

Primary tabs

The Brooklyn shopkeeper was already home for the night when her phone rang: a man who said he was from a neighborhood “modesty committee” was concerned that the mannequins in her store’s window, used to display women’s clothing, might inadvertently arouse passing men and boys.

The groups have long been a part of daily life in the ultra-Orthodox communities that dot Brooklyn and other corners of the Jewish world. But they sprang into public view with the trial of Nechemya Weberman, a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidim in Brooklyn, who last week was sentenced to 103 years in prison after being convicted of sexually abusing a young girl sent to him for counseling.

Mr. Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, testified during his trial that boys and girls — though not his accuser — were regularly referred to him by a Hasidic modesty committee concerned about what it viewed as inappropriate attire and behavior.

The details were startling: a witness for Mr. Weberman’s defense, Baila Gluck, testified that masked men representing a modesty committee in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, N.Y., 50 miles northwest of New York City, broke into her bedroom about seven years ago and confiscated her cellphone.

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, who prosecuted the Weberman case, has now received allegations that members of a modesty committee forced their way into a home in the borough, confiscating an iPad and computer equipment deemed inappropriate for Orthodox children, officials say. Allegations have also surfaced that a modesty committee threatened to publicly shame a married man who was having an affair unless he paid the members money for what they described as therapy.

“They operate like the Mafia,” said Rabbi Allan Nadler, director of the Jewish studies program at Drew University in Madison, N.J.

Assholes. And I love it that the head of the whole "modesty" operation is a child molester. That just rings so true.

... that grow out of this backward community -- Modesty Vigilante/Child Molester -- have been getting a lot of press recently because of the child-molesting convictions of the "counselor" (unlicensed therapist) in the story, and a brewing scandal that the Brooklyn DA's Office has for too long refused to bring these cases for fear of alienating on of his powerful allies (the Borough Park bloc, basically).

... the analog of the Orthodox Jewish communities' Modesty Patrols in the God's Work crowd is the loud philanthropy that results in hospitals, universities, parks, medical research projects, professorships getting named after the godly givers ...

Winter is coming so PLEASE help lambert...

... who is going into the this winter having sunk a bundle into an insulating project so he doesn't bleed money into the air, for starters, and still needs to pay the bills so he can feed the hamsters that power the wheels that turn the servers at The Mighty Corrente Building. Please, won't you help keep the hamsters shiny and well-fed?

No PayPal Account required! Give the hamsters immediate relief!

Or Subscribe to make a monthly payment!

Corrente is completely supported by contributions from readers (and, to be fair, a tiny smidge of Powell's commissions). We do not take advertising, so we can say whatever the Fuck we want. Thank you!

The 12-point platform

"The 12-Point Platform" is a simple list of common-sense programs that will benefit every American, no matter their class, gender, race, or age (PDF).

Marine slang: A clusterfuck was any group of Marines big enough to draw enemy fire, or several Marines close enough together to be wounded by the same incoming round. More generically, a clusterfuck was something that was all screwed up, i.e. "That blocking operation was a giant clusterfuck!" Whenever three or more CAP Marines gathered in the open, talking or working on something, somebody was sure to call out "clusterfuck!" and one or more guys would walk away. (<a href="http://capmarine.com/cap/glossary.htm#C">Capmarine.com</a>)</blockquote>Clearly, Bush's war of choice in Iraq is "all screwed up"; that makes it a clusterfuck by definition. However, the term is even more <i>a propos</i>. Tactically, Bush's war of choice in Iraq is a clusterfuck. The analogy to "Marines close enough together to be wounded by the same incoming round" is clear. In Vietnam, "in the open" meant being exposed in the rice paddies or jungles. In Iraq, "in the open" means (1) urban warfare where (2) troops (and contractors) must be supplied by trucks which (3) are not armored thereby making them vulnerable to (4) the "incoming rounds" of IEDs placed along the roadside. Nice work, Inerrant Boy. (And the resonance to the words of Matthew 18:20, "wherever two or three are gathered together," is heartbreaking.) NOTE: A tip of the Ol' Corrente Hat to the man in the grey turtleneck for <a href="http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_08_14_atrios_archive.html#11244662886927... the word "clusterfuck"</a> when applied to Bush's war of choice in Iraq.

Citibank Plutonomy files

"What could go wrong?
Beyond war, inflation, the end of the technology/productivity wave, and financial collapse, we think the most potent and short-term threat would be societies demanding a more ‘equitable’ share of wealth."

Corrente Fellows (emeritus)

Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment (snort) advice, or legal advice, or medical advice, or any kind of advice. BANKSTER WEASEL PROPHYLACTIC: The word "alleged" is deemed to occur before the word "fraud." Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.